Hua Cheng
Hua Cheng (花城, Huā Chéng), referred to as Sanlang (三郎 Sān Láng) is the other main character and love interest in Heaven Official's Blessing. One of the Four Great Calamities, Hua Cheng the most famed of the three Devastation-class Demons in the Ghost World, thus he is entitled to the title of Ghost King (鬼王). When he first emerged, he challenged 33 gods and won, making his name as a scourge of the Heavenly Officials overnight. Appearance He is often sighted accompanied by silver butterflies and a rain-shower of blood. He is known to change shape, but always wear red. Wears an eyepatch on his right eye and a small braid with a red pearl. SPOILER!!!In his true form he is missing his right eye due to having dug it out in order to fashion Eming. Personality His devotion to Xie Lian is obvious even before his actual appearance in the book. History Burning the Temples of 33 Gods in a Single Night He openly invited thirty-five Heavenly Officials to a fight. The invitation content was that he would fight the Martial Gods in martial arts, and the Literature Gods in debating. Within those thirty-five Heaven Officials, there had been thirty-three of them who had felt it was ridiculous, but they had all been infuriated by his provoking and accepted the challenge. They prepared to join hands and teach the ghost a lesson. The first one to compete with him had been the Martial Gods. Martial Gods were the Heaven’s strongest gods, each one of them had a high number of worshippers and their spiritual power was outstanding. Fighting an insignificant novice ghost was something just a grasp away from victory. But who would have expected that the one battle would end in complete wipe-out. Even their godly weapons were totally crushed to powder by Hua Cheng’s extremely strange curved sword. Only after the fight did they find out that Hua Cheng had come out from Tong Lu Mountain. ... If they couldn’t beat him in a fight, then they should at least be able beat him in debating, right? Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t win that either. That Hua Cheng had traversed the heaven and earth and could speak of the past and debate the current. He occasionally educated them, was occasionally malicious, was occasionally unyielding, was occasionally crafty, was occasionally insightful, was occasionally sophistic, and occasionally set traps. It really was a watertight debate, sharp and eloquent. He quoted evidence as backup, deluded people with lies, and attacked wherever he pleased. Several Literature Gods were scolded by him from the skies to the earth, from ancient times to the present. They were so angered they could cough up blood and have it reach the clouded firmament. Hua Cheng became famous in a single battle. However, if it had been just that, that would not have been enough to call him frightening. What was frightening was that after that overwhelming victory, he had requested the thirty-three Heaven Officials to fulfill their promise. Before the challenge, both sides had made an agreement: If Hua Cheng lost, he would offer up his ashes. If the Heavenly Officials lost, then they would all voluntarily jump down from the Heavens and become ordinary people from now on. If Hua Cheng hadn’t acted so arrogant, with such severe stakes and with how the thirty-three Heaven Officials believed there was no way they would be defeated, they wouldn’t have agreed to fight and debate with him. However, there wasn’t a single Heavenly Official who fulfilled their promise. Although going back on their promise was humiliating, think about it, there were thirty-three of them who had lost. If only one of them had lost, then naturally it would be very humiliating. But when so many of them lost together, it wasn’t humiliating at all. They could even tease each other about it. As such, they reached a tacit understanding; they would all pretend that this had never happened at all. In any case, people were very forgetful, in another fifty years, perhaps no one would remember it. They calculated that point pretty well, but the thing they didn’t take into calculation was that Hua Cheng was not so easily dealt with. Not fulfilling your promise? Okay, he could help out. As such, he burned down all the temples of these thirty-three Heaven Officials in the human realm. This was the nightmare the immortal gods now talked about with pale faces—A ghost in red setting fire upon thirty-three military and civil temples.Chapter 12 Abilities * Control Deathly Spirit Butterflies. * Shapeshift * Wield a Sabre * Turn people into roly-poly toys * Extremely good luck. Trivia * Hua Cheng's nickname Sanlang, which means 'third son', are a continuation of an in-joke where all the main loves of Mo Xiang Tong Xiu's novels are organised chronologically (e.g. Scum Villain's Luo Binghe is "Big Brother Luo", Grandmaster's Lan Wangji is "Second Brother Lan"). ** In a meta sense, his moniker "Bloody Rain Flower-Snatcher" (血雨探花) is also a reference; tanhua is the title of the overall third-place scorer of the ancient Chinese imperial examinations. References Category:Characters Category:Ghost